Arvind Kejriwal tries to end rift with private forensic lab over conditions

Hyderabad-based Truth Labs, a non-profit independent forensic laboratory tasked with carrying DNA analyses on the request of the AAP government in Delhi, has reportedly decided to withdraw its services as it is irked over certain conditions that have recently been incorporated by the administration in its revised notification. Sensing the urgency of the matter that could affect the proceedings of the criminal cases pending in the city courts, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has reportedly directed his officers to send a fresh proposal to the laboratory so that it does not discontinue its services.

In a letter to Mr Kejriwal, the Truth Labs founder chairman, Dr Gandhi P.C. Kaza, said: “The notification was issued not purely keeping in view the public interest to serve the victims of crimes and for providing quick and quality justice, but only aimed at serving personal interests of some people. Truth Labs has decided to withdraw from the MoU already signed for examination of forensic document cases after completion of existing cases on hand in order to facilitate people who are interested to make commercial gains out of the woes of the victims in their own ways.”

The laboratory had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Delhi government in August 2014 for carrying out forensic examination of the documents. On the request of the city government, the lab decided to become the country’s first and only independent forensic lab to undertake DNA analyses. Accordingly, the city government had issued a notification about the DNA analyses. However, the lab was not satisfied with certain terms and conditions detailed in the first notification and subsequently it brought up the matter to the notice of city home minister Satyendra Jain.

A highly-placed source said that the government later issued another notification, in which certain anomalies raised by the lab were rectified. However, the lab was irked over the way certain new conditions had been incorporated in the second notification. In his letter to Mr Kejriwal, Mr Kaza alleged that some new anomalies had been incorporated in the second notification to “benefit some vested interests.” He said: “Truth Labs, however, is not keen to obtain the outsourcing contract, but we are concerned about disservice that is going to effect the victims of the crime and cause travesty of justice that may eventually result in reputational loss to the government if some unprofessional agencies were assigned the forensic outsourcing service.”

Mr Kaza said DNA analyses is carried out on biological samples such as stains of blood, saliva, semen, body tissues and other tissues of humans, plants and animal-origin encountered in criminal cases such as rape, murder, assault, accidents, fire and other mass disasters like terrorist bombing and other natural calamities. “In all these cases, mostly traces of biological materials in putrefied, burnt and mutilated condition will be available from which DNA has to be extracted with great precision and proficiency after a preliminary screening. DNA analysis is also carried out for disease diagnosis for medical purposes and personal identification for paternity testing and immigration purposes wherein blood samples are collected by thousands of pathological labs and hundreds of diagnostic centres across Delhi and India.”